Nothing seems to say you can UPGRADE before the lease term is up, which would lead the rule to be no early upgrade, you stay in the 12 month, 24 month, 36 month till its done or you pay the remaining balance then you can upgrade. At least that is the way it seems.
The website says you can... For a fee...
And that’s what I don’t like about it vs. the iPhone upgrade program. I now have to do a 12 month lease to upgrade annually if I want that where as I had flexibility with the two year terms of the iPhone upgrade program.
Apple just sent emails to everyone on the IUP if you have made at least 12 payments on the IUP you can turn your device in right now and they will close the loan and you pay nothing or you can make the 24 payment and own the device.
I think you are missing something here, your "one big payment" is less than the big payment you would have made when purchasing it outright. Why would that then lead you to think "in that case may as well return it"?
Ah, I see that email in my inbox - at least there's that option since the website FAQ seemed to say otherwise - emphasis mine:
Does anyone see where it lists what the final purchase price would be at the end of the lease?
It does seem like the fee is most likely the rest of the MSRP so you would lose the flexibility of upgrading after a year on a 2 year lease.
It's a good point and I might look into it this year however it's actually more like $499 net for the year of usage. $1199 minus $700 trade in value for the 16 Pro max at the time of the 17 Pro max release. What is interesting is they don't list specific storage sizes just models so if you have a 1TB pro max you are going to get the same trade in value as a 256GB model, that sucks!!
When you signed up for iUP you paid the taxes up front! This new plan the taxes are in the monthly payments hence the difference in cost...........
That's in line with what I'm thinking. For me, it largely looks like the same program with slightly different terms (like Apple Care not being rolled into the price.) But, looking at the lease checkout page, if I pick the same model that I currently have, the 12-month terms are $58.33/mo. with Apple Care purchased separately. If I were to go the monthly route for AC+, it's a few dollars more expensive per month than my payment under the IUP.
ACMI says the same but I can confirm that many of us have MVNOs and were able to use ACMI for our devices by choosing T-Mobile at checkout. It doesn't work for the base models though because it tries to verify your eligibility to have the $30 carrier free charge removed but all I had to do was skip the connect to T-Mobile screen three times (apparently now you also have to select that you didn't get the verification text) and I had a fully unlocked device on ACMI. Currently using it on US Mobile.
You are correct. I factored it off the old $1099, not the new $1199. My bad.
It's not a few dollars more expensive as I said right above this post IUP charged taxes up front. They are in the monthly charge in the new program they are identical other than when you pay the tax.......
